


Water Cooler, Water Fountain

by jamestiqueeriuskirk



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Bickering, Domestic, Established Relationship, Innuendo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 17:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13932102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamestiqueeriuskirk/pseuds/jamestiqueeriuskirk
Summary: “I can pull up their wedding pictures on Facebook.”Peter was sure he could do no such thing because he couldn’t wrap his mind around their existence.-(Thor and Loki keep their personal and professional lives separate, and they're pretty good at it, to the point where their students think they hate each other.)





	Water Cooler, Water Fountain

Peter was hoping to avoid Mr. Laufeyjarson and taking shelter in Mr. Odinson’s room seemed like the way to do it, but his formidable AP Language and Composition teacher found him there, anyway.

“Odinson, may I borrow Peter, for a moment?” He asked, bland and professional, which was as polite as Peter had ever heard him be with Mr. Odinson or, actually, anyone else.

Mr. Odinson, bless him and his kind heart and his keen observation, seemed to sense Peter’s discomfort, bordering on dread, and smiled at Mr. Laufeyjarson. He only got a cold look in return, but he didn’t waver. Mr. Odinson was never cowed by Mr. Laufeyjarson, which was probably why he hated him so. “You can just chat with him here. I’m sure Peter won’t mind my presence.”

He turned to Peter, who didn’t dare confirm, but shot him a grateful look, all the same.

Now it was Mr. Laufeyjarson’s turn to smile, but his, as was typical, wasn’t warm at all. “Okay, then, Peter. I wanted to speak to you in private and spare you the indignity of an audience, but Mr. Odinson seems to think he, as your European History teacher, should be privy to the matter of your grades in my class.”

Peter shuddered. He knew what was coming, but he had hoped, naively, he realized, now, that Mr. Laufeyjarson might go easy on him if there were witnesses.

Mr. Laufeyjarson procured a familiar stack of papers, stapled together, from the manila folder in his hand. “I thought, when I assigned this, that it would be easy enough for all but my problem students, but, I guess, I was wrong.” He dropped the papers down onto the desk in front of Peter, who eyed them, feeling sick at the amount of red he saw there.

“Twenty-seven grammatical errors, at, as per my usual grading scale, minus two points for each. Since I’ve yet to hear Mr. Stark or Dr. Banner complain about you in the teachers’ lounge, I have to assume your math and science grades are what carry your GPA, these days, so I trust you can easily calculate how severely making a forty-six on this essay will impact it.”

Peter could, and he felt a hot sting in his eyes, and tried to focus on his breathing, determined not to give Mr. Laufeyjarson the satisfaction of seeing him cry- that was what he wanted, wasn’t it, being so cruel to him? He stared at the desk resolutely, just to avoid looking at Mr. Laufeyjarson, though he didn’t allow himself to focus on the score at the top of the page, because that would have been immediately detrimental to his pact with himself.

“Loki,” Mr. Odinson began, reproachful.

“Don’t ‘Loki,’ me,” Mr. Laufeyjarson snapped, turning on him. “We’re to maintain a certain professionalism, don’t you remember, unless you want to start looking for a new job.”

Mr. Odinson’s gentle visage twisted. “And what part of humiliating one of your students in front of another of his teachers is ‘professional,’ exactly?”

“I’m no sadist, as you well know, Odinson.” Peter couldn’t begin to guess why that made Mr. Odinson blush, but, whatever the reason, it didn’t seem to make Mr. Laufeyjarson stumble, so Mr. Odinson didn’t let it get the better of him. “If I didn’t think Peter had the capacity to do better I wouldn’t be so disappointed. Do you think I’d confront Mary Jane the same way?”

“Needlessly bringing up a student who’s not even present’s academic performance just to shame it? That’s two counts of unprofessional behavior from the stickler for the rules.”

Mr. Laufeyjarson’s long fingers twitched, as if itching to strangle Mr. Odinson, a desire which Peter wouldn’t put past him, but he kept to cutting remarks, probably since, while less messy, in his employ they were no less deadly.

“Keeping score, are you? The  _model_  of professional behavior.” He laughed, as if it occurred to him that, for Mr. Odinson, with his dual responsibilities as AP Euro teacher and JV football coach, it kind of was, at least half the time. “I suppose that even in the classroom your mind is ever on the football field. That must be why they keep you around. Heaven, your colleagues, and your students all know it’s not because of the AP scores you return.”

Mr. Odinson rose from his desk, face looking downright dangerous. He advanced on Mr. Laufeyjarson, who stood his ground, and they met to snarl at one another inches away from Peter’s desk.

“Uh.” Peter was not assertive or bold or self-assured enough for this. “Can I go?”

“Yes!” Mr. Odinson and Mr. Laufeyjarson snapped, in unison, Mr. Odinson’s indulgence and kindness gone from his voice thanks to Mr. Laufeyjarson’s provocation, and Mr. Laufeyjarson’s usual bad humor clearly exacerbated by Mr. Odinson’s admonishment.

Peter didn’t need telling twice.

-

Shuri was hunched over Mr. Stark’s desk when Peter arrived in the physics lab, despondent.

“Mr. Stark,” she was just beginning. “I found three mistakes in the answer key for the test.”

Mr. Stark stared at her for a moment, then sighed and took a long drink from his purposefully opaque thermos. “Yeah, sounds about right. Leave the corrections there, I’ll look over them tonight and get back to you sometime before C lunch tomorrow.”

She beamed at him, set the papers she’d been clutching so tightly onto the top of the mess already on his desk, and bumped Peter on the shoulder on her way out.

“Chin up,” she said. “I can’t stay any longer, my brother’s waiting for me outside, but you look glum. I’ll text you.”

And with that promise she skipped out, and Peter was alone with Mr. Stark.

“May I have a bus pass?” He asked, hoping his shaky voice was passably just suffering from pubescent turbulence.

No such luck.

5:00 was a sweet spot, in terms of Mr. Stark’s drinking- which was an open secret, at least to his favorite students. Classes were over, and activities were mostly over, so he’d surpassed the functional level of intoxication he kept up to get him through the day, but there were still students milling around and work to be done and Fury would never, ever let him leave before the office staff, so he hadn’t let himself become incoherent. He was just relaxed, and even more uninhibited than he was during the day, surprising as it was that that was possible. No filter. They had some of their best conversations when he was in this state.

“What happened to you?”

Peter sniffled. This was, probably, not going to be such a conversation. “I’m going to fail English.”

Mr. Stark straightened up from his lazy slouch, shaking his head slightly, as if he still couldn’t remember, after decades of drinking, and teaching health class because no one else wanted to and Fury hated him, that nothing sobers you up except time.

“You’ll be in good company,” he said. “I failed every English class I took in high school  _and_  college, both. Even Creative Writing 101, and the final in that class was to write a poem about  _whatever we wanted_. It didn’t even have to  _rhyme_. Which it didn’t. Nothing I turned in for that class did, now that I’m thinking about it, but that’s not important.”

The patented Mr. Stark concoction of defensive grandiosity and real self-deprecation was appreciated, because Peter knew it meant he was trying, but it didn’t really help, much.

Mr. Stark seemed to sense that.

“You’re in, what, Lit?”

“Language and Composition.”

Mr. Stark knocked himself on the forehead. “Oh, of course, you’re a junior. Why can I never remember which year takes which class?” He regarded his thermos, for a second.

“It’s okay,” Peter said.

“Yes, exactly,” Mr. Stark said, trying for gravity, a mark he usually missed. “It’s always okay to make mistakes. I would know, I’m kind of an expert in the field.”

He made a broad, sweeping gesture, and Peter wasn’t sure whether he was indicating the corrected answer key Shuri left behind, or the mess, generally, or the liquor in his thermos, or his decision to go into teaching.

And, because it did not behoove Mr. Stark to go for too long without undermining a point by boasting about something, anything, even nothing worth bragging about, even nothing at all, the very white noise of bragging, he followed up. “I’m also good at other stuff.”

Peter nodded intently.

“And you are, too,” Mr. Stark said. “Just maybe not literary analysis.”

“Language and Composition,” Peter reminded him.

“Oh, so, what, diagramming sentences? Even less useful. Actually, I’m not sure. Weigh in, Peter, which is a bigger waste of time, a class that we should replace with SparkNotes, or a class we should replace with spellcheck?”

Peter didn’t think that was fair at all- even in this utopia of Mr. Stark’s where either of those were perfect resources, who did he think was responsible for their design and upkeep?- but he was in no mood to defend Mr. Laufeyjarson or his field, so it was a good thing that the question seemed to have been rhetorical.

“Don’t tell Laufeyjarson I asked that,” Mr. Stark warned. “He already has it out for me. One more drop in the bucket and he might beat me to death with his useless diploma.

Mr. Stark snickered at his own unfunny joke and Peter debated whether or not it would do any good to point out that Mr. Laufeyjarson’s diploma had landed him the exact same job as Mr. Stark’s while he reflected on the truly stunning breadth of his AP Physics teacher’s assholery, though he was touched it was being deployed full-force in an effort to cheer him up.

“Okay, that’s enough out of me,” Mr. Stark said in a very rare display of self-awareness. “It’s wrong of me to speak ill of my colleagues in front of you, I know. Do as I- no, wait. Don’t do as I say  _or_  do. Just don’t mind me at all, really. And, above all, don’t pass along what I said here to Laufeyjarson. Can’t stress that part enough.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” Peter said. “Talking to Mr. Laufeyjarson is the last thing I want to do right now.”

“Smart kid,” Mr. Stark said, raising him a toast with his thermos. “Of course, we knew that.”

He took a drink, and then shook his head thoughtfully, clearly meditating on his abrasive colleague. “I tell you, I don’t know how Odinson tolerates him.”

That was a strange thing to say.

“He… doesn’t?”

“My God,” Mr. Stark said. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“About what?” Peter asked, totally puzzled, but with a strange feeling of intuition tugging his gut, like he was on the edge of making a shocking, forbidden discovery.

“The misconception that just won’t die. Of course, neither Laufeyjarson or Odinson have ever tried to put it to rest, far as I know. But, then, no one’s ever asked. And you’d think a whole magnet schoolful of wunderkind would pick up on something like this, but you’re all a bunch of mini, absent-minded professors.”

“ _What?_ ”

“God, Peter,” Mr. Stark said. “I know this is unprofessional of me, but, also, I don’t care. I like you too much to see you languish in ignorance like this. I’m sorry, but the truth comes out, today.”

Peter was so lost and slightly scared he was almost completely distracted from his abysmal performance in English. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying ‘Odinson and Laufeyjarson, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I—' oh, you get it, right?”

He got it, but he didn’t believe it.

“What? No, they- no. They hate each other! Mr. Odinson had to switch rooms with Ms. Romanova two years ago because the proximity was so bad for them. They were using their planning periods ‘unprofessionally.’” Peter hadn’t had either teacher his freshman year, but he knew well the story of their infamous room reassignment. Everyone did, even kids who hadn’t started high school yet when it happened, even kids now at the middle school across the street. The Odinson/Laufeyjarson rivalry was the stuff of not just school, singular, but entire  _school system_  legend.

“Well, yeah,” Mr. Stark said, very pointedly, and with an extra, suggestive look, just ‘cause being subtle was anathema to him. “They were using their planning periods unprofessionally.” And, further true to brand, he waggled his eyebrows, in case Peter needed any more help.

He didn’t. “Oh, gross!” He didn’t want to, but his imagination took him hostage, held a gun to his head, and forced him to picture Mr. Odinson on his knees under Mr. Laufeyjarson’s desk while he tried to grade papers, and then vice-versa. He wasn’t sure which one was worse to think about, and he didn’t want to reconsider the images long enough to decide.

“Sorry,” Mr. Stark said, throwing up his hands. “That wasn’t appropriate at all. Sorry. But you’ve had health class, I remember you slacking off. You know all about the birds and the bees, and about what happens when a history teacher and an English teacher love each other very much. Also, a lot about sweat glands. Have I ever mentioned I hate teaching health class? Off topic. Point is, no harm done.”

Peter did  _not_ agree.

“I can tell you won’t take me at my word. You wanna see some hard evidence. You’ll make a great scientist someday.

That was true, but beside the point.

“I can pull up their wedding pictures on Facebook.”

Peter was sure he could do no such thing because he couldn’t wrap his mind around their existence.

“Wait, no, Facebook is blocked on the school computers and I have no idea where my phone is. I’ll do you one better.” He swiveled his office chair and dialed out an internal number on the old, wall-mounted phone.

He pushed the speakerphone button while it rang, and Peter’s AP Chemistry teacher picked up.  _“Hello?”_

“Hey, Bruce, what song was it Odinson and Laufeyjarson played for the first dance at their wedding?”

There was a pause, and, somehow, it was loudly and clearly disgruntled.

_“_ _Lovesong_ _, Tony. I’m in the middle of tutoring. Was there anything important-?”_

“You know there wasn’t. Kisses.”

Dr. Banner hung up on him, but it didn’t put a damper on Mr. Stark, because he’d had the last word. Even though the word had been ‘kisses,’ which made a pretty trivial victory.

“See?” Mr. Stark said. “A credible source.”

It wouldn’t surprise Peter for Mr. Stark to get it into his head to try and pull his leg, but it would be a cold day in Hell before he could convince Dr. Banner to go along with it.

“I understand your skepticism, Peter,” Mr. Stark said. “From your perspective it probably seems like an unstable, volatile relationship. And yeah, you’d think, watching them at work, that it would just be nonstop Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with them—" strange reference, Peter thought, for someone who’d just thoroughly trashed the English disciplines to make “—but they’re actually quite touching, almost saccharine. It’s downright disgusting. I puked at their wedding reception.”

A beat.

“Yes, it was because I drank too much, there was an open bar and Odinson’s dad sprang for the good champagne, but it was a really beautiful ceremony. Or so Potts tells me, frequently. I don’t really remember it.”

It was a lot to take in. Not Mr. Stark’s blackout drinking, the unexpected love match.

And that was it, right? Even if he could make room in his worldview to accept that Mr. Odinson and Mr. Laufeyjarson were having hatesex in the teachers’ lounge during passing periods- ew, don’t think about that, Parker- he couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that they really  _loved_  one another, that they went home to the same house, that they shared breakfast, in the mornings, that they might, one day, years from now, retire to Florida together and walk on the beach, hand in wrinkly hand.

Oh, yeah, okay, cool, now he was picturing the future, old-person sex they might have after that future walk on the future beach, great.

He was gonna  _have_ to tell Shuri about this, in no small part so that someone smarter than him could submit her theory on how Mr. Odinson and Mr. Laufeyjarson had managed to peacefully coexist in a room together long enough to fall in love, and how they maintained that equilibrium.

-

“Was I too harsh on him?” Loki whispered, drawing Thor out of his book and into their bedroom, where he found his husband despondent against his side. Grading papers and planning lessons, individually, in silence, aside- because it was nigh-impossible to get all that done during the school day- they didn’t often bring their work home, or, at least, not into the bedroom, and this was why.

“Do you want honesty?”

That was answer enough, for Loki, but he nodded anyway. “You know I do.”

Thor kissed him, to soften the blow, and that was for his own benefit, really, because he knew it would annoy Loki, the gentle treatment. “You were, yes.”

Loki sighed, and tilted his head back against his pillow. “You’re right.”

That made Thor smile, because ever in the back of his mind he carried their early quarrels, the vicious spats he’d once worried would mar their marriage forever, the rough start wherein Loki, combative, would have never admitted to any such thing, and would have fought him on it half the night and then ridden him in apology for the rest of it, and they’d both have shown movies in their respective classes the next day because they’d have been too tired to teach proper lessons.

Loki pursed his lips. “I’ve agreed you’re right, Thor. Don’t treat it like a momentous occasion; I’ve done it before. There’s no need to get a big head about it.”

Okay, so they’d changed, but they also hadn’t.

Thor schooled his expression into something more neutral, which seemed to satisfy Loki, who continued.

“Embarrassment is a powerful teacher. Maybe not a gentle one, but, then, neither am I.” Loki paused, maybe to see if Thor had something to say about that, but Thor knew that either agreeing or disagreeing would be dangerous and they’d veer totally off-course, so he said nothing, just waited out Loki’s silence.

“Peter needed a rude awakening. It’s better for him to wise up now and set himself on improving- and I  _know_  he can- than crash and burn when he takes his first blue book exam in English 1301. And he will get there; with his AP scores and extracurriculars I could give him a big, fat zero on everything he turns in from now until May and he’ll still be getting scholarship offers from MIT this time next year.”

“I agree,” Thor said. “But you made him feel like the world was ending. Did you see his face when you walked into my classroom?”

“I didn’t enjoy being the harbinger of his GPA’s death, Thor,” Loki snapped. “But I know he left our meeting with a reluctance to dismiss his English homework as ‘unimportant’ and a new appreciation for how serious the fallout will be if he decides to be so careless again.”

Loki did have a point, like usual, but the means to his end could have been a little finer and less, well, brutal and  _violent_.

“I’m not afraid to play the villain, when it works. And I know when it works.”

That was true. Loki was, often, ruthless, and Thor, often, liked that about him. It came in handy when someone had to go to bat for their marching band’s funding at schoolboard meetings. But it had never endeared him to his students.

“And I know I’m unpopular with my students.”

“Maybe that’s because you made them read _Eats, Shoots & Leaves_ over Thanksgiving break.”

Loki poked him hard in the ribs with a spindly finger, which he deserved.

“The One-Act Players got over it.”

“That’s because you order them pizza when rehearsals run past 8:00.”

The second jab was even harder, and Thor deserved it as well.

Loki wasn’t done.

“It’s appalling how little effort these kids put into my class. And I know it’s for lack of trying, because their comp-sci, et cetera, grades are fine.”

They could easily get maudlin about how little public education and pushy, helicopter parents- and, so, by extension, kids stressing about college admissions- cared about the humanities.

“I’m on your side,” Thor promised him. “It’s much the same with most of my students. They might like my class—" Thor didn’t add, because there was no need, they both knew it, that that was because he was a much more lax disciplinarian and a more benevolent authority than Loki, not because teenagers were more interested in learning about the Medici Family than they were in learning how to develop persuasive argument for nonfiction writing “—but on exam day very few of them put in any effort at all.”

Loki squeezed his bicep, both a commiseration and an apology. That was why Thor’s AP returns were so dismal. Loki’s weren’t actually much better.

“You could, still, stand to be a little nicer to your students,” Thor continued, diplomatic. He knew Loki knew that, and agreed, somewhere in there.

“And to my colleagues, as well?” A playful change of subject was as good as a concession, so Thor smiled and allowed himself to be lured off task, satisfied that they were done with that conversation, for the time being.

“Yes, I was thinking just that.”

“You miserable idiot. I already spoil you rotten at home, do you think you deserve the same treatment at work, too?” There was no bite in Loki’s voice; in fact, it was downright fond, so Thor knew he didn’t have to worry too much, but it wouldn’t do for him to totally let his guard down, either.

“I want to say ‘yes,’ but maybe I should count my blessings.”

Loki grinned at him. “Perhaps a refresher course, to help you get started with that.”

The next day, Thor’s students watched Braveheart with gusto, delighted by his sleep-deprived but earnest recitation of the speech, in almost perfect time with Mel Gibson, and Loki’s paid dutiful attention to Othello so as to fill out the review sheet he’d assigned them to ensure it were so.

**Author's Note:**

> [Thotki.tumblr.com](https://thotki.tumblr.com)


End file.
